


Visitations

by MelanieR



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23454079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelanieR/pseuds/MelanieR
Summary: Set after Archangel episode. Duncan gets an unusual visit.
Kudos: 10





	Visitations

The loft seemed larger than he remembered. Larger-and darker-than it had a few months ago. Was it really so short a time since he had sat perched on the desk and wished Richie peace? That was something Duncan MacLeod would never know himself, not now. Not ever again.

He wasn't sure even now what had spurred him to return here. Maybe it was that image of Richie lingering in the elevator before he left, as if there were more he wanted to say. But, as always, words were left unsaid between them. Duncan regretted that more than almost anything else.

Richie Ryan had gone in search of answers to his questions on life. Duncan wondered if he'd found any. He hadn't even thought to ask him that in France. Another regret. He'd never know, now, but did it matter? He thought somehow it did.

He'd been here just long enough to dig out every photograph in the place. Pictures of happier times, of Richie, and Tessa, and an Antique store that was always full of light. He'd thought-at least temporarily-that that light had died along with Tessa. But Richie had needed him...and he had needed Richie. That alone had kept him going in the months that followed, until he was able to take a deep breath again without that painful tightness in his chest where his heart had been.

He owed Richie for that, for ignoring his own pain, playing the jester to tease Duncan out of those darker moods when memories threatened to overtake him again. He'd never told the kid-the young man-how much that had meant to him. Not even later when he was able to see things clearly. There had never seemed to be a good time to bring it up. Regret number one thousand.

Sitting on his bed amidst the clutter of photographs, Duncan gazed down at the innocently smiling faces in the picture he held, noticing for the first time how the sun had played off of Tessa's hair and made Richie's darker, reddish-blonde curls appear lighter than usual. He'd taken the picture of them himself, standing alongside the barge on the left bank of the Seine.

Two smiling faces. Lives gone, snuffed out too early-and he blamed himself.

If he hadn't brought Tessa into his life, she never would have been on that street that fateful night. That thought was still too painful to bear. Did she know and accept what he was and what that meant for her? Yes. Did she deserve to lose her life because of that choice? No.

And Richie...

He'd condemned Cochrane for killing his student in a blind rage, but was he any better? He couldn't get past that, couldn't forget the look of genuine concern on Richie's face that last night-a look that registered in his mind a millisecond after he swung. Too late to stop, too late to call out a warning, too late for anything but regrets and self-recriminations.

Rising to his feet, he placed the framed photograph on the shelf with infinite care and continued to stare at it, memorizing every detail.

The sound of the elevator rising drew no more than a moment of his attention. Not an Immortal, there was no sensation. Besides himself, only Amanda, Joe and...only Amanda and Joe had keys. Joe, then. He'd left the Watcher in Paris. He'd left *everything* in Paris, including his katana and a large piece of his heart.

There were other swords here in the loft, but he doubted he'd have the inclination to pick one up and defend himself, if the need arose.

As the elevator ground to a stop and the gate was raised, he turned briefly...and froze. The ground seemed to shift beneath him, and his breath caught almost painfully as his stomach plummeted toward the floor. Duncan stared in muted shock at the figure standing casually at the other end of the loft.

"Dear God in Heaven. I am mad," he muttered, stumbling backwards to escape the apparition. "I'm cursed."

"Geez, I've been called a lot of things, but a curse? Way to bolster my confidence, Big Guy."

Laughing blue eyes regarded him from a face he knew as well as his own, and loved far better.

"You're not real," Duncan informed the redhead. "Ye canna be." His brogue surfaced along with emotions he'd believed dead, killed in a blind swing within the walls of a deserted race track.

"Not real, huh? Okay, that one I saw coming," the figure informed him with a small smile, striding to the kitchen counter and lifting the timer resting there. Duncan raised his hand in reflex and caught the small implement as it was hurled in his direction.

"Could I do that if I wasn't real?" and when the Scot continued to stare at him in barely concealed horror, "Come on, Mac, think with this," he instructed, with a hand over his heart, "not with this," a finger tapped the side of his head. "Am I real?"

Duncan set the timer down and approached him cautiously, walking a wide circle around him and stopping directly in front of the now grinning figure.

"Richie?" His voice broke and he reached out to touch, to make physical contact, but his hands stopped short of that contact, as if an invisible barrier held them back. Duncan's eyes widened and he looked up at the young man with a puzzled frown.

"Well...that one's gonna take a little explaining. Maybe you'd better sit down."

The Scot was way ahead of him. His knees were already giving out and he dropped into the nearest chair.

"You're not really here. I just imagined you," Duncan mumbled, gazing at him with a lost expression.

"No. No, I'm really here. You just can't touch me. It's one of the rules." Richie said that last derisively, rolling his eyes skyward. "Actually, I'm not supposed to be here at all," he admitted guiltily. "But, you know me and rules."

Duncan just continued to stare, even as Richie settled himself on the edge of the coffee table, so the young man leaned forward and snapped his fingers in the Highlander's face. "Yoo-hoo, anybody home? Earth to MacLeod," he quipped. "Man, Tessa told me this would happen."

The casually dropped name snapped Duncan out of his trance. "Tessa? Tessa told you?"

Richie blew the air out of his mouth. "Okay, the Readers Digest condensed version. Evil in Paris, tricks me, tricks you, you take my head, I'm gone, you freak, you come back here without your sword, I go where people without heads go, you keep thinking about me, I'm here. See, easy."

After years of listening to Richie's fast-talk, Duncan had managed to pick out the important issues within the gibberish. "You're dead?"

"Oh, yeah."

"I'm back to 'I'm mad,'" Duncan announced, to what he now perceived as an empty room.

"Here we go again," Richie muttered. "Come on, Mac. In four hundred years you've seen a lot that you couldn't explain. Why not this? Why not someone visiting from the afterlife?"

"Because it's never happened before," Duncan told him simply, rationally.

"You didn't believe in Dark Quickenings either, until you took Coltec's," Richie reminded him. "And Immortals weren't even a possibility until you became one, right?" Richie sighed heavily. "Mac, I know you like to think you've got it all figured out, but this is one lesson I learned first."

"I can't sense you," Duncan stated, eyeing him wearily.

"I don't have a Quickening, remember?"

Did he remember? Duncan closed his eyes to the image burned into his mind. Could he ever forget?

"Mac...don't."

Duncan opened his eyes to find Richie watching him with a look of great concern, and shook his head helplessly. "I'm so sorry."

"Hey, shit happens," Richie came back, giving a good imitation of a grin. "It wasn't your fault, you know," he continued, serious once more. "I mean it wasn't like you were *trying* to whack me." A half-hearted shrug. "It tricked you—it tricked both of us," he admitted, looking genuinely angry for the first time. "You've gotta get past this, Mac. You've got to. They need you back there."

In France. Duncan understood without any elaboration.

"You can't run from this. I know what happened messed you up pretty bad, but I'm okay, Mac. Really."

The young man gazed around the loft and climbed to his feet. "Tessa wanted to come," he said, changing the subject. "But she's got this hangup about following the rules, you know? I did talk her into covering for me, though."

"What will they do if they catch you?" Duncan asked anxiously.

Richie had moved over to the pictures and was idly sifting through them and smiling. "Nothing," he said, appearing unconcerned by the possibilities. "Maybe have Darius lecture me on following dictates from on high. He's done that more than a few times already, anyway," he confessed, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Duncan couldn't help but smile back. "I can just imagine. He's probably in his glory. A captive audience."

"Yeah. I was pretty surprised to see him when I got there. I wasn't sure he and I would end up in the same place. I mean I haven't exactly been a saint."

"Neither was he, Rich. Not in the beginning."

"Right, but I guess all those years after made up for it, huh?"

"I guess so. So, he was waiting for you, was he?" he asked, finding his legs again. He moved to the counter and leaned against it to give him an unencumbered view of the young man.

"There was a whole crowd, Mac. You shoulda seen it," Richie enthused, moving back in his direction. "Darius and Tessa and Emily—I told you about my mom—and a bunch of people from the old neighborhood. Geez, people die young there," he said, suddenly pensive. "Anyway, it was great," he added, shaking himself. "Like a reunion."

"Your foster mother is with you. That's wonderful, Richie," Duncan said, feeling the weight on his chest ease slightly as he watched a myriad of emotions cross his friend's face.

"Yeah. She's Tessa's age. It's funny, I thought she'd be older, somehow."

"Well, you were pretty young when she died."

"Mmm. We've got a place together—she insisted. After all, I'm her kid," he announced, puffing out his chest. "Tessa moved in a couple days ago. She said she thought Mom might need some help keeping me in line," he groused, looking secretly pleased at the arrangement. "Just my luck they took to each other right away. They sit around telling all these really embarrassing stories about me," he divulged.

"It sounds like a real family, Toughguy," Duncan acknowledged, feeling a little envious.

"It is, I guess. As close as I ever had...at least since you and Tessa. But the thing is, people see you the way you were when they passed over. So when Mom looks at me she sees a four-year-old. She keeps tryin' to wipe my mouth after I eat, Mac," he said, blushing to the tips of his ears.

Duncan grinned widely at the picture that brought to mind.

"Sure, go ahead and laugh. Tessa thinks it's hysterical," he grumbled good-naturedly.

"Haven't you explained that you're twenty-two now?"

"Sure, and she knows it, but she still sees this little kid. I tried to put my foot down the other day at breakfast. Stamped my foot and everything."

"So..."

"So, she swatted me on the tail and told me to settle down," he related sheepishly.

Duncan couldn't hold back his amusement, and chuckled loudly, feeling that weight lighten even more.

"Laugh it up, Big Guy. Just think about all of the people in your clan who died when you were little."

Duncan's smile disappeared, replaced by a mild look of horror.

This time it was Richie who laughed. "Yeah, I can't wait to see Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod being treated like a five year old. Or ten year old, or whatever," he said, with an evil smile.

Duncan frowned darkly at that. "Richie..."

"Hmmm?"

It all seemed so familiar, so comfortable-this idle banter with the young man-that Duncan had temporarily forgotten the circumstances. They returned to him now, wiping away everything else.

"Nothing," he said at length, mentally kicking himself.

"Gary says it won't last," Richie went on. "You remember Gary, right? It's not like you actually met him, but..."

"I remember."

"Yeah, well, he says after a while everyone you knew sees you as you are, and their feelings shift to that reality. They just have this 'period of adjustment' where they see what they want to." He shrugged. "Everybody goes through it."

Duncan studied his friend closely. "You sound happy, Rich."

"Yeah. Yeah, I am, Mac," Richie replied, as if he, himself, was surprised by the answer. "A lot of people I really care about are around all the time, now. And I know nothing's going to happen to them," he explained, thinking it through for the first time. "No more fighting. No more worrying about what Immortal's just around the corner. No more thinking I'm going straight to hell because of what I am."

"Richie—" Duncan admonished, falling back into old patterns.

"Come on, Mac. Tell me you haven't thought that at least once."

Duncan opened his mouth to deny it, then closed it again, smiling wistfully. "It's nice to know it isn't true."

"Hey, you got any beer?" Richie asked, already scrounging within the confines of the refrigerator, his jeans-clad butt jutting outwards. He stood straight again with a bottle in each hand, silently offering one to Duncan, who declined it with a wave.

"Don't they have any beer...um, there?" he probed, as the young man resettled himself on the couch.

"Sure, it's Heaven, remember?" Richie said, with an impish grin. "But you can't get a buzz on. I thought maybe down here...you know."

Duncan smiled conspiratorially and took a seat in the adjacent chair. "What does Emily think of that little plan?"

Richie's eyes bugged out and he nearly choked on a swallow of beer. "Shhhh," he hissed, motioning with his free hand for lower tones and looking around nervously. "Not so loud. She doesn't know about it, okay?"

"Your secret's safe with me," Duncan assured him, with exaggerated solemnity.

"Thanks." Richie snorted. "Man, if she even knew I was here I'd be dead meat." He frowned at his own choice of words. "Well, you know what I mean. I think Tessa was secretly glad I was coming. You've had her pretty worried lately, too."

Duncan sat up a little straighter in his chair at that. "Tessa's worried?"

"Sure. Remember, we know when someone's thinking about us."

"Until *this* happened, I hadn't thought about her very much at all lately."

Richie smiled easily at that. "Yes, you did, Mac. You just didn't know it. It's kind of like breathing-you do it without realizing."

Duncan had to accept the logic of that. Tessa had meant so much to him, perhaps she had become a habit-one he didn't want to give up. "Do you think she forgives me? You seem to...does *she*?" he asked hesitantly.

"Mac, I don't think it ever even entered Tessa's mind to blame you for what happened to her—or to blame me either," he added. Duncan had already opened his mouth in preparation of a lecture on why Richie should never have blamed himself, but the young man cut him off instinctively. "Although she did have a few choice words to say about your not telling her I was an Immortal. I don't think she realized how much French I've learned in the last few years, or she might have held back a little," he tossed in, obviously amused by the memory.

Duncan blanched noticeably. "Bad?" he questioned uneasily.

"Let's just say you should be glad you weren't handy at the time." He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. "Then she got to worrying about you, and forgot all that."

"I don't want her to worry about me. I don't want either of you to worry, Richie."

"Sorry, Big Guy. You don't call all the shots," Richie retorted without malice. "If we want to worry...we'll worry." He crossed his arms over his chest in an act of mild defiance.

The move had the desired affect, bringing a grudging smile back to the Highlander's face. "Stubborn, huh?"

"I prefer tenacious," Richie sniffed. He noted Duncan's raised eyebrow with a grin. "What can I say, I'm expanding my vocabulary...with a little gentle persuasion from Darius," he admitted. "He said something about having done the same thing with you a long time ago." Richie threw him a look of sheer innocence.

"So he's taken you under his wing, has he?" Duncan rejoined, sidestepping the implication.

Richie grinned secretly at the obvious ploy, but didn't push. "Just as long as he keeps his mold tea to himself," he said with a grimace. "Besides, I got pretty good at chess in the last five years."

"You cheated," Duncan stated bluntly.

Richie huffed. "Cheated? That hurts, Mac. I'm wounded."

"Richie..."

"No, no, it's all right. I'll get over it...someday," he sighed dramatically, trying his best to look pitiful.

"Richie," Mac repeated, and there was something in his tone that caught the younger man's attention and held it.

"There's something I want—something I *need* to tell you."

"Hey, if it's about that twenty bucks I owe you," Richie countered flippantly, clearly trying to steer the Immortal away from what appeared to be a heavy topic.

"Let me say this, Rich," Duncan admonished, trying to sound stern.

"Well, okay, if you have to," Richie muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, eyes locked on the floor.

"Look at me," the Scot ordered gently, waiting till Richie reluctantly did so before continuing.

"You're family to me. You always were, you always will be. I love you."

"I know, Mac."

"You know?" Duncan repeated, sounding mildly affronted.

"Yeah," Richie admitted, his cheeks flushing. "I couldn't be here at all if you didn't."

"One of the rules?" Duncan asked, with raised eyebrow.

"Not a rule, really. You only know when someone who loved you is thinking about you, so if you didn't, if you were just sorry about what happened, I wouldn't even know about it."

"You knew what I was thinking?"

"You mean, can I hear your thoughts? No, it's nothing like that. I just *know* when you're thinking about me." He frowned then. "It's hard to explain, Mac."

"Then don't try. It's enough that you knew, and you came. That means more to me than I can say. I'll hold onto this, Richie. Thank you."

"Hey, you know," Richie muttered, trying to slough off the show of gratitude.

"Well, did it work?" Duncan asked, motioning to the beer.

"Nah, no buzz. Course I didn't drink enough. Maybe when I see you in France you'll have some of that three hundred year old cognac. Now, that would be worth testing," Richie informed him, with a gleam in his eyes.

"I'll be sure to keep it in stock." Duncan felt an odd pang, sensing the end of the visit.

"I'll hold you to that." Richie winced suddenly, and frowned. "Okay, okay, I'm on my way. Calm down, Tessa," he announced to a spot just over his right shoulder. He shook his head as he faced Duncan again. "Gotta book, Mac. Don't want to push my luck the first time out."

"You can't hear what *I'm* thinking, but you can hear what *Tessa* is thinking?"

"I can't hear what *anyone's* thinking," he confessed as he got to his feet, raising a confused frown from the Scot. "She's not thinking, Mac, she's yelling. Yelling I can hear...no problem."

"Yelling, huh?" Duncan repeated, grinning as memories of Tessa, standing hands-on-hips while dressing down the then-teenager, came to mind.

"Yeah," Richie replied with a chagrined expression. "Guess I've been here longer than I thought." He leaned toward the other man then. "Between you and me, I think she's having a bad hair day."

Duncan bit his lip. "In Heaven?"

"Hey, *it's* Heaven. *We've* still got flaws," he related. "Next time I'll try to bring you-know-who along."

Duncan smiled at the possibility of seeing them both together, then sobered. "I don't want you to get into any trouble, Richie."

"Hey, trouble's my middle name, remember?" Richie came back, waggling his eyebrows comically.

"I remember," Duncan agreed unhappily.

"Mac...uh, Joe...Joe's been thinking about me a lot, too. I'd go see him, but I wouldn't want to give the guy a coronary," Richie explained, with a look of pain that was at contrast with his attempts to grin. "Would you...would you tell him that I'm okay? I mean really okay." Duncan's expression had him adding, "Yeah, right, he probably won't believe it." The redhead walked to the shelves and lifted a small figurine, turning it idly in his fingers before setting it down and facing the Scot again with a determined look. "Tell him I said 'little Richie Ryan finally got out of Dodge.' I think he'll understand," he finished, and managed the grin this time.

Duncan himself was feeling a little guilty over leaving the Watcher behind. "I'll tell him," he promised.

"Cool. I'd hug you but..."

"People might talk?" Duncan teased.

"Something like that," Richie retorted, leaning in to re-demonstrate the invisible barrier quandary. "Some rules you can break, others..."

"I understand. Take care of yourself, Richie."

"Yeah, you too, Mac. You know what you've gotta do, right?"

"I know."

Richie nodded and smiled, then headed for the elevator with a strut that had been missing the past year.

"Man, I hope it's dinnertime, I'm starving," he declared "I am not *always* hungry," Richie argued with the absent voice. "If you made tuna casserole again, I'm ordering Chinese," he muttered as the elevator started to rise.

Even knowing the loft was on the top floor, Duncan didn't question this unprecedented event. At this moment, everything was right with his world, and if the elevator wanted to travel *sideways*, he wouldn't complain.

Duncan picked up the near-empty beer bottle from the table top, frowning down at the noticeable ring it left behind on the fine wood. "Richie..." he grumbled, shaking his head. He smiled then, and looked up toward the ceiling. "Swat him for me, Emily." The smile slipped away slowly, and he took a deep, shaky breath. "Hug him for me, Tessa."

Duncan tossed the bottle into the garbage bin before moving back to the bed. He hastily gathered up his things, shoving them into the duffel bag, and strode purposefully for the elevator. He touched it almost reverently, then opted for the stairs, taking them two at a time and forming his battle plans. He stopped only long enough to choose a sword from the wall. To be unarmed now was out of the question-Duncan MacLeod was a man on a mission.

The first thing he had to do after returning to Paris was retrieve his katana and inform the friends waiting there that he had *not* lost his mind.

He smiled grimly as he locked the dojo doors behind him. There was a bit of evil in the world that had just made a very formidable enemy.

End


End file.
